
AN ADDRESS 



BY 



N. P. HALLOWELL, '61. 

DELIVERED ON MEMORIAL DAY, 

May 30, 1896, 

at a meeting called by the graduating 
class of harvard university. 




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BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

1896. 






Copyright, 1896, 
By N. p. Hallowell. 



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mnibersits Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



THE 

MEAl^mG OF MEMOEIAL DAY. 

DELIVERED ON MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30, 1896, AT A MEETING 

CALLED BY THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



As we stand before the tablets in yonder hall and read 
the familiar names of our old classmates and comrades in 
arms, there is somewhat of satisfaction in the thought that 
there never was an internecine struggle in which principle 
played so great, passion so small a part as in the war of 
1861-65. In making this broad and general remark it is 
not necessary to forget the crimes committed in Kansas 
and in Missouri by the guerilla chief Quantrell, the massa- 
cre of unarmed recruits at Fort Pillow by General Forrest, 
the intended indignity put upon the body of Colonel Shaw 
at Fort Wagner, and the pitiless cruelty of the Anderson- 
ville pen ; but, in spite of these somewhat serious excep- 
tions, it remains true that one of the characteristics of the 
war was the absence of personal antagonism. Every vet- 
eran within sound of my voice will readily recall familiar 
examples coming within his observation and experience 
illustrative of my meaning, — how the opposing pickets 
would begin by chaffing each other, and would end by a 
pleasant interchange of courtesies : the rebel would crave 
a little quinine or other medical store of which he was 



4 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 

always in sore need; the Yankee would accept a bit of 
tobacco, of which the supply at times was scant. 

Those whose good fortune it was to be in Sedgwick's 
division on tlie day of Fair Oaks will remember the pas- 
sage of the Chickahominy on Sumner's floating bridge, — 
a structure held in position against the rising torrent only 
by the weight of the marching column ; and they will 
remember, when the further side was reached, how the 
victorious rebel battalions, on the point of sweeping 
Casey's division into the river, butted against this un- 
known and unexpected reinforcement, and met with a 
bloody repulse. When darkness closed upon the field of 
battle, the ground was thickly strewn with rebel dead and 
rebel wounded in every stage of suffering. To add to the 
discomforts of the situation, a drizzling rain set in. As 
the men of Sedgwick's division were about to dispose of 
themselves for the night, and to get what protection from 
the elements they could with the rubber blankets they 
had slung round their shoulders that morning when they 
broke camp, a colonel of a certain Massachusetts regiment 
walked down the ranks, and made a call for rubber 
blankets with which the rebel wounded might be covered. 
Not a rubber Avas held back ; so far as one could tell, 
every blanket was handed in, and the exhausted men of 
that regiment, who had marched and fought from midday 
until sundown, stood up in the rain through that dreary 
night without a murmur. 

When General Grant, at Appomattox, with a nicety of 
feeling and simplicity of statement which were the certain 
marks of that great captain, said to the surrendered foe, 
" Retain your side-arms ; keep your horses, — they will be 
needed for the spring ploughing," he not only stamped his 



THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 5 

own character with the noble attribute of magnanimity, 
but at the same time gave fitting expression to that spirit 
of humanity which always pervaded the old Army of the 
Potomac. 

Generals Grant and Sherman, and Sheridan, too, never 
failed to draw a sharp line of distinction between a traitor 
and a fighting rebel. The one is a thing greatly to be 
despised ; the other, a person much to be respected. 
Jefferson Davis, Howell Cobb, Floyd of Virginia, and 
Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, — one a United 
States senator, three members of President Buchanan's 
cabinet, — while still under oath of oflTice, conspired to 
overthrow the government they had sworn to maintain. 
They scattered our navy over remote waters of the globe ; 
they stationed our little army in the far distant posts of 
Texas ; they crammed our munitions of war into the ar- 
senals of the South ; — Secretary Floyd even put the hand 
of a thief upon the trust funds of the. United States. 
Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, and 
other men of their kind, handed back their commissions 
to the government first, and cast their lots with their 
respective States second. Whatever was good in the lives 
of such men is the common inheritance of their children 
and of ours. 

With some little pride, which I know you will excuse, 
I shall read a letter written by the schoolmaster of Robert 
E. Lee, my kinsman, Benjamin Hallowell, a venerable 
Quaker, late of Alexandria, Va. Mr. Hallowell writes: 
" Robert E. Lee entered my school in Alexandria, Va., in 
the winter of 1825-26, to study mathematics preparatory 
to his going to West Point. He was a most exemplary 
student in every respect. He was never behind-times at 



6 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 

his studies; never failed in a single recitation; was per- 
fectly observant of the rules and regulations of the institu- 
tion ; was gentlemanly, unobtrusive, and respectful in all 
his deportment to teachers and his fellow-students. His 
specialty was finishing up. He imparted a finish and a 
neatness, as he proceeded, to everything he undertook. 
One of the branches of mathematics he studied with me 
was conic sections, in which some of the diagrams were 
very complicated. He drew the diagrams on a slate ; and 
although he well knew the one he was drawing would 
have to be removed to make room for another, he drew 
each one with as much accuracy and finish, lettering and 
all, as if it were to be engraved and printed. 

" The same traits he exhibited at my school he carried 
with him to West Point, where, I have been told, he 
never received a mark of demerit, and graduated at the 
head of his class." 

Lee's record as a soldier is almost as perfect as his 
record as a schoolboy. In the long list of battles which 
he planned and fought there is only one not worthy of his 
genius. " When the Army of the Potomac had forced its 
way through siege and battle to within sight of the spires 
of Richmond, it was rolled back upon the James in a 
seven-days' conflict." Hard pressed, our divisions gathered 
themselves together upon the plateau of Malvern Hill, and, 
encircling their lines with artillery, stood at bay. Lee 
came on, flushed with success, hot with pursuit, and hurled 
his brigades, first, one upon our lines there, then another 
here, all without concert of action. Five thousand rebel 
dead and wounded were the penalty of his rashness. It 
was McClellan's best, Lee's worst, fought battle of the war. 
Lee never repeated his mistake ; nor did McClellan. 



THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 7 

There are few pages in history more pathetic than the 
beginning and the ending of Robert Lee as a rebel. He 
was the favorite of General Scott. At the instance of 
President Lincoln, the command of the armies of the 
North was offered to him. But neither the confidence of 
Lincoln, nor the affection of Scott, nor the instincts of his 
better nature could prevail. Out of an agony of conflict 
with himself he came to the fatal conclusion to draw his 
sword against his country. When defeated and crushed, 
he rode from Appomattox to his home; and from his 
home he was soon borne to his grave. There was no 
great bodily ailment. The man had simply died of a 
broken heart. 

You may think that I have lapsed into an eulogy of 
rebels. And indeed it is pleasant to dwell upon the 
virtues of our old friends, the enemy. And yet there 
should be neither mental nor moral confusion as to the 
real meaning of this Memorial Day and this Memorial 
Hall. I unite with the late William J. Potter, of the 
Class of 1854, who warns us not to be caught by the senti- 
mental sophistry that since there were heroism and fidelity 
to conviction on both sides, we may commemorate those 
virtues of both armies as American, and thereby try to for- 
get there were ever two armies or two causes. Fidelity 
to conviction is praiseworthy ; but the conviction is some- 
times very far from praiseworthy. Slavery and polygamy 
were convictions. Such monuments as Memorial Hall 
commemorate the valor and heroism that maintained cer- 
tain principles, — justice, order, and liberty. To ignore 
the irreconcilable distinction between the cause of the 
North and that of the South is to degrade the war to the 



8 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 

level of a mere fratricidal strife for the display of military 
prowess and strength. War, horrid war, waged for its 
own sake is ignoble, brutal ; but when waged in defence 
of convictions which deserve to prevail, then indeed may 
war be glorified and sanctified by the sufferings and lives 
of its victims. So long, then, as there is a distinction 
between the principles of liberty and those of slavery, may 
monuments to Confederate dead be erected on Southern, 
not on Northern soil, and may this Memorial Hall stand 
for those Harvard men who fought for liberty, and not for 
those who fought for slavery. 

The courage necessary to face death in battle is not of 
the highest order ; that of the non-resistant is of a better 
kind. Some forty Friends, called Quakers, of North Caro- 
lina, were forced into the rebel service. Their religious 
convictions would not let them figlit. They refused to 
drill or carry a musket. They were prodded with bayo- 
nets, strung up by the thumbs, knocked down with the 
butt-ends of muskets, lashed on the bare back, starved in 
jails until, in some instances, death ended their sufferings. 
You and I, my veteran friends, were courageous, I dare 
say ; but to sustain us we had the vicissitudes of camp 
life, of the march, and of battle. The women who stayed 
at home to work, to endure, and to suffer in silence, — 
they, too, were courageous. 

One of tlie best examples of courage, combined with 
dignity, self-respect, and self-control, was the conduct of 
our colored troops in the nnitter of pay. They were prom- 
ised the same pay and in general the same treatment as 
white soldiers. No one expected the same treatment in 
the sense of courtesy, but every one believed a great nation 
would keep faith with its soldiers in the beggarly matter 



THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 9 

of pay. They were promised $13 per month. They were 
insulted by an offer of $10. Massachusetts resented the 
insult, and endeavored to remedy the wrong by offering to 
make good the difference between the $13 promised and 
the $10 offered. The State agents with money in hand 
visited the camps on Folly and Morris Islands, and pleaded 
with the men by every argument, by every persuasion they 
could command, to accept State money. In vain. They 
were soldiers of the Union, not of a State. They would 
be paid by the United States in full or they would not be 
paid at all. The nation might break its faith, but they 
would keep theirs. Every mail brought letters from 
wives and children asking for money. In some instances 
homes were broken up and the almshouse received their 
families. At times our regiments were driven to the verge 
of mutiny. In point of fact, the Fifty-fifth did stack arms 
one morning, not in an angry, tumultuous way, but in a 
sullen, desperate mood that expressed a wish to be 
marched out to be shot down rather than longer hear the 
cries from home and longer endure the galling sense of 
humiliation and wrong. But better counsels prevailed, 
and a grand catastrophe was averted by the patriotism and 
innate good sense of the men, added to the sympathy and 
firmness of the officers. One poor fellow, a sergeant in 
the Third South Carolina, induced his company to stack 
arms on the ground that he was " released from duty by 
the refusal of the Government to fulfil its share of the 
contract." He was logical, but it was in time of war. 
The only thing to be done, was done. He was court-mar- 
tialled and shot. In the scathing words of Governor 
Andrew, " The Government which found no law to pay 
him except as a nondescript and a contraband, neverthe- 



10 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 

less found law enough to shoot him as a soldier." Seven 
times were our regiments mustered for pay. Seven times 
they refused and pointed to their honorable scars to plead 
their manhood and their rights. The men of the Fifty- 
fifth for sixteen, of the Fifty-Fourth for eighteen months, 
toiled on and fought on without one cent of pay. At last 
they won — won tlirough long suffering and patient endur- 
ance, won through a higher and rarer courage than the 
courage of battle — a victory that is not inscribed on their 
flags by the side of Wagner, James Island, Olustee, and 
Honey Hill, but which, none the less, fills one of the best 
and brightest pages in the history of their race. 

Among the names inscribed upon the shaft on Soldiers' 
Field is that of Robert Gould Shaw. How he and Russell 
and Simpkins and other brave men went down in death on 
the bloody slopes of Wagner, is known to all. Colonel 
Shaw was then twenty-five years of age. How young it 
seems now ! His clean-cut face, quick, decided step, and 
singular charm of manner, full of grace and virtue, bespoke 
the hero. The immortal charge of his black regiment reads 
like a page of the Iliad or a story from Plutarch. I have 
always thought that in the great war witli the slave power, 
the figure that stands out in boldest relief is that of 
Colonel Shaw. There were many others as brave and 
devoted as he, — the humblest private who sleeps in yon- 
der cemetery, or fills an unknown grave in the South, is as 
much entitled to our gratitude, — but to no others was 
given an equal opportunity. By the earnestness of his 
convictions, the unselfishness of his character, his cham- 
pionship of an enslaved race, and the manner of his death, 
all the conditions are given to make Shaw the best histor- 
ical exponent of the underlying cause, the real meaning of 



THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 11 

the war. He was the fair type of all that was brave, 
generous, beautiful, and of all that was best worth fighting 
for in the war of the slaveholders' rebellion. 

It is an awe-inspiring sight, — the charge of men upon a 
fort to be stormed or a battery to be taken. The popular 
conception of a charge is a rush. There is indeed a final 
rush, should there be any survivors to make it. But to 
my mind the grandeur of a charge is in the quiet advance 
which precedes the final struggle. One does not run 
through life ; no more did Pickett double quick his mile or 
more over the open fields of Gettysburg. His lines came 
on slowly, majestically. They were ploughed with solid 
shot; blown into shreds by bursting shells; decimated 
by canister in fi'ont, by musketry on flank. At every step 
those torn ranks would shrivel and shrink. The survivors 
closed in on their colors and calmly walked to their fate. 
For one brief moment they struck the Union centre, and 
then — they were no more. 

Comrades, who are the remnant of a once mighty host, 
we must thus march shoulder to shoulder. There is work 
ahead for each one of us ! Our ranks are thinning. A 
comrade drops out to-day, another to-morrow. Peace to 
them ! But, steady, men ! Close in on the colors ! With 
old-time courage oppose a bold front to the foe, until the 
last survivor shall hand over the standard to these younger 
men, and rejoin his comrades in that land where there are 
" neither wars nor rumors of wars." 



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